JULIUS C2ESAR. 175 



them. We find him breaking loose from these supposed 

 bonds on the first intimation of a war in Pontus, rushing 

 with his usual rapidity to this distant contest, and ending it 

 with more than his usual speed and success. What our 

 author calls his 'arrogant bulletin' the famous veni, vidi, 

 vici, of this war is a story too variously told by the 

 writers of the time to admit of its being brought in evidence 

 against Caesar. Nor have we proof that he sacrificed any 

 real object of his policy either by this dalliance in Egypt, or 

 by the later visit of the Egyptian queen to Rome. Mark 

 Antony might lose his world for Cleopatra : Caesar could 

 not be thus conquered. Yet, while rejecting the probable 

 exaggeration of anecdote and poetry, we cannot willingly 

 part with the whole of the picture handed down to us. A 

 passage of Suetonius places before our imagination a barge 

 on the Nile, bearing the splendid freight of Caesar and Cleo- 

 patra the majestic Roman who changed the face of the 

 world, noble in person and feature, great in intellectual power 

 as in war and the royal sorceress of Egypt, bent to win 

 her splendid prize, and by the very witcheries which long 

 after led a conqueror captive to his ruin. But we need for 

 such a scene as this our own Shakspeare; whose gorgeous 

 picture of Cleopatra on the Cydnus is one of the many 

 marvels in his unapproached delineation of this woman ; 

 a portraiture ranking as a whole among the truest and most 

 felicitous of all his wonderful works. 



Scarcely had the untired Caesar reached Rome from his 

 victory over the son of Mithridates in Asia, when he set forth 

 again with his army for Africa to encounter the powerful 

 force collected there by Cato and Scipio. The conflict at 

 Thapsus closed the campaign at once ; and gave a motive, 

 though we are far from believing a necessity, to the tragic 

 end of Cato. On this subject Mr. Merivale puts before us a 

 striking and eloquent passage. 



